[1][2] As a Roman senator, his most important legislation was the Cincian Law (Lex Cincia), which forbade the acceptance of payment for legal services.
He spent years as a prisoner of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, who—according to Alimentus's later account—confided in the Roman the details of his crossing of the Alps.
Scholar Bruce W. Frier mentions that none of the envoys are heard of again in the written records, and argues that the legation may have been captured while in Bruttium, Alimentus' release thus resulting from the peace treaty after Zama.
[7] Niebuhr, one of the major modern historians of Rome, praised Alimentus's methodology as well, describing him as a critical investigator of antiquity who threw light on the history of his country by researches among its ancient monuments.
L. Cincius Alimentus's account of his imprisonment in the Second Punic War and biography of the philosopher Gorgias probably originally formed part of his annals.